When
the subject of local history and genealogy of Northwest Arkansas
arises, the name of Mr. Alvin Seamster is almost inevitably introduced.

Mr. Seamster has been interested in history
and genealogy for at least seventy-three of his eighty-one years.He remembers that when
he was about seven years old he began taking notes as he listened
to the speakers in the public park at Bentonville.These speakers might be ex-slaves or politicians,
he says.Anyone
who wanted to say something simply climbed up on a box or something
and made a speech.

Bit by bit over the years he has collected
the genealogies of approximately a thousand early-day families
of Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri.

Alvin Seamster was born on the line dividing
Benton County, AR., and the Indian Territory on March 1, 1891.He had eight brothers and one sister.They were the children of Martin Luther Seamster (born
in Schuyler Co., Missouri, June 16, 1844, died 1936) and Nancy
Jane Cole, born Oct. 18, 1852, in McDonald Co., Mo., just seven
miles from the present home of her son, Alvin.She died in 1927, and of the nine children, only three
are still living; Alvin and his brothers, Roy and Jesse, both
of whom live in Bentonville.Mother didnt like to have it mentioned, but
her father and the mother of Jesse James were first cousins,
Mr. Seamster says.

Mr. Seamster first attended school at Hiwasse,
AR., where the family had moved.He started at the age of seven in the third grade, and
explains that he had always listened while his brothers did their
home-work, and there was no point in repeating the first and second
grades!

The town of Hiwasse was originally called Old
Dickson in honor of Joe Daniel Dickson.When the railroad was built from Bentonville to Centerton,
a man named John Henry Keith was instrumental in having the name
changed to Hiwasse after the river in Tennessee, where he had
previously lived.Among
the people Mr. Seamster remembers as neighbors in Hiwasse in the
early 1900s were several families named Banks from N. Carolina,
the Nichols family from Tennessee, and Joe Beasley (who became
the County Judge) from Tennessee.

When Alvin was twelve the Seamster family moved
to a new location four miles west of Centerton, and there he grew
to young manhood.

In 1911 Alvin taught a one-room country school
at Sycamore in Washington County.One of his pupils was Ella Huls, a daughter of John W.
and Emily Hune Huls.Mr. Huls was a farmer at
Mt. Comfort and they were the parents of four sons and four daughters.

The next year on August 1, 1912, teacher and
pupil, Alvin Seamster and Ella Huls, were married by the Rev.
J. F. Kilgore at his home in Fayetteville.They had five children.The first daughter, Yvonne, died Feb. 16, 1964.She was the wife of M. L. White, and left two sons, Alvin
Morris and William White.John William, the first
son, married Marjorie Sanders of Mena, AR.They live at Ft. Smith, and have two sons, Billie and Stevie.The next daughter, Mary, wife of Milton Scholze, lives
in Rogers and has a daughter, Anita Lee, and a son, Milton Randall.Alice Lee (Mrs. Amiel Riley)
also lives in Rogers, and has three sons:Richard, Robert and Randy.The youngest son, Alvin Martin (never called anything
but Buddy, his mother says) married Betty Mason
of Hindsville, and they have a daughter, Laura Yvonne, and a son,
John Martin.Buddy
Seamsters attractive home is only a few yards from that
of his parents.

The young Mr. Seamster taught three more terms
in country schools, all in Benton County.He then took a job that was to last for forty years - that
of mail carrier on Rural Route Three out of Bentonville, AR.For the first six years he used a horse and buggy, afterward
a Model T.He began reading
law in his spare time, passed his examinations, and for
twenty-five years he was an attorney as well as a mail carrier.He was the mayor of Bentonville from 1950 to 1957, when
he retired.

Along with his interest in people and their
histories, Mr. Seamster was fascinated with the things the early
settlers used.He began to collect old
furniture, dishes, implements, books, documents, photographs,
newspapers; anything and everything we now call antique.

Fourteen years ago the Seamsters moved to a
beautiful country location near Garfield, and soon work begun
on his long-cherished dream of a museum.In 1962 the building was finished and Seamsters Museum
was opened.Each item
was meticulously labeled, and the Museum attracted thousands of
visitors.His large
collection of Civil War material was particularly popular, and
some items in the Museum date back to Revolutionary War days.His extensive collection of old coins and stamps is kept
safe in a bank vault.

Alvin Seamster is listed in Whos
Who of Historians of the South and Southwest (1927-28).He is pleased by the fact that a thesis he wrote at the
age of nineteen while attending a summer session at the University
of Arkansas, just recently made possible the declaration of the
Ridge House in Fayetteville as a national monument to be preserved
by the government.He
has long studied the history of the Cherokee Indians and the Trail
of Tears.He has promised
to make a tape-recording of this information for the Pea Ridge
National Park.

For forty-five years he worked to have the
Pea Ridge Battlefield declared a National Park; starting by writing
to Congressman Tillman in 1914 a suggestion that the government
buy 100 acres including the Elkhorn Tavern.He wrote year after year to other congressmen urging the
purchase of the Battlefield.Finally President Eisenhower
signed a bill declaring the Battlefield a National Park, provided
that the State of Arkansas would buy the land from private owners.This was done by increasing the state sales tax, and 4210
acres were purchased, which became the beautiful and historic
Pea Ridge National Park.

Mr. Seamsters health is frail now.The museum is closed, but
he still writes history for people all over the United States.His eyes shine with interest, his wit is well-honed, and
his memory is phenomenal.He personifies that old-fashioned but meaningful phrase
a gentleman and a scholar.The kindliness of his face
and his conversation suggest that his interest in people comes
from a deep love of all people.